“But why not?”
“Because. You just can’t. Now lay the table.”
“Yes, but,” says Lampie, “I really, really want to!”
Martha pushes a pile of plates into her hands. With spoons on top. “Look, get a move on, will you? Where has that Nick got to?”
Lampie watches her fussing around nervously. She walks from the sink to the table and back, drops forks, picks them up, puts them in the drawer, no, no, on the table. Even though there is no need. Lenny is calmly crumpling up bits of newspaper, the dogs are noisily chomping away on bones, and the food was ready long ago.
“Please?”
“Hey, stop getting under my feet and sit down at the table. No, fetch the milk for the coffee. There is nothing in that tower, so why would you want to go up there?”
“No reason,” says Lampie. “Just because.”
“Well then,” says Martha. “The answer is no. Hurry up, I need some milk in my coffee or my day will be ruined.” She pushes Lampie towards the pantry, which always smells so badly of fish.
Lampie stops. “I want to see our house,” she says. “To see if my father—”
“Your father? The one who hit you? Why would you want to see him?”
Lampie shrugs. Because, she thinks, because, because. “Just for a little bit? Please?”
“Don’t look at me with those big eyes.” Martha turns her back on the girl. “I said no. No one goes up there. The room is locked and we’ve lost the key.”
I bet it’s not, thinks Lampie angrily, I bet that’s not true. Her father always used to turn away like that whenever he was lying. When he said he didn’t know where the money had gone, that she should just look harder for it. Even though she could smell on his breath what had happened.
She flings open the pantry door. It really stinks in there, like rotten old fish from the harbour that have completely gone off. Can’t Martha smell it? She picks up the milk churn. Empty.
“We’ve run out of milk,” she says.
Martha doesn’t seem to hear. She is standing by the stove and stirring the pan so angrily that it is splashing.
“So you can just get that idea out of your head,” she mutters.
Martha wishes that she could do the same, get it out of her head and think about something else, just for a moment. But all day she thinks about that room upstairs. She thinks about it, but she does not go up there.
Tomorrow, she tells herself every night. Tomorrow I’ll go. But she does not. All day long, she can smell the fish wrapped up in newspapers in the pantry. The smell is getting worse and worse. It really is time to take it up there. But she does not go.
She knows very well that she is only making it worse by not going. That she will make him angrier and therefore more dangerous. So she had better just grit her teeth and do it. Just go, and she can be back downstairs in no time. Open the door, put down the plate, close the door again. If she is quick, it should be fine.
But the afternoon comes, and then the evening, and she still has not been upstairs.
She could send that new girl though… Martha looks at her, helping Lenny with his puzzle, the tip of her tongue sticking out of her mouth. Such a little one, so skinny. It wouldn’t be fair.
But life isn’t fair.
She couldn’t send Lenny, that would never work, and Nick…
He is never there when she needs him, and when he is there he does not do as she says. He sometimes goes for a week without turning up for meals, and she sometimes sees him sneaking around in the garden, doing goodness knows what. She can call him until she is blue in the face, but he will not come. No, Nick is no good to her.
So there is no one else. If she does nothing, then it will die. And if that thing up there dies, she can forget about her job, and about living in this house with Lenny too. And then what? She takes a swig of coffee. Bitter, her life has become bitter.
Maybe it is not dead yet, but weak and less dangerous. Maybe. She will go tomorrow. No, tonight. Maybe then she will finally be able to sleep.